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HELPS UPWARD 



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GOLDEN COUNSELS. 

Dwight L. Moody, 
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Rev. Theodore L. Cuyler, D. D. 
HELPS UPWARD. 

Rev. Wayland Hoyt, D. D. 
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Amos R. Wells. 

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Helps Upward 



By 

Wayland Hoyt, D. D, 




United Society of Christian Endeavor 
Boston and Chicago 






The LibR-RY 
OF Congress 



WASHINGTON 



(i' 






38161 

Copyright^ iSgg 

BY THE 

United Society of Christian Endeavor 




Colonial Press : 
Electrotyped and Printed by 
C. H. Simonds <5r* Co. 
Boston^ Mass.f U, S. A, 






CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER PAGE 

L The Story of an Ancient Martyrdom 7 



n. Advancement in Keligion 

in. The Sight which Satisfies 

IV. The Divine Thought of Us 

V. Truth to One's Self 

VI. A Good Medicine . 



12 
16 
23 
32 
35 



HELPS UPWARD. 



THE STORY OF AN ANCIENT 
MARTYRDOM. 



^^^^^^^HE was only twenty-two. Her hus- 
band had lately died. Her little 




babe was clinging to her breast. 
Her mother was a Christian, but 
her aged father was still a pagan. 
It was during the persecution under the insane 
Roman emperor Caracalla. And among others 
at Carthage, where she lived, the fair and youth- 
ful Perpetua was arrested for the crime of being 
a Christian. 

His daughter Perpetua was very dear to her 
still pagan father ; and to him the disgrace of 
her arrest, and for such a cause, seemed terrible. 
He visited her prison to plead with her. 

"While we were in the hands of the perse- 



8 HELPS UPWARD. 

cutors," Perpetua writes, " my father sought 
with all his power to turn me away from the 
faith. 

" ' Father,' said I, ' do you see this little pitcher 
lying here ? ' 

" He said, ' I see it/ 

" Then I said, ' Can it be called by any other 
name than what it is ? ' 

" He answered, ' No/ 

" ' Neither can I,' I replied, ' call myself any- 
thing else but what I am, — a Christian.' " 

She was thrown into a deeper dungeon. " I 
was tempted," she said, " for I had never been 
in such darkness before. what a dreadful 
day! The excessive heat occasioned by the 
multitude of prisoners, the rough treatment we 
experienced from the soldiers, and, finally, anxi- 
ety for my child made me miserable." Christian 
friends managed to procure for her a slightly 
more lenient imprisonment, and for a little her 
babe was given her. " The dungeon," said she, 
" became a palace to me." 

She was soon to meet her public and formal 
trial. Again her father sought to shake her 
faith and resolution. 

" My daughter," he pleaded, " pity my gray 
hairs ; pity thy father ; look upon thy son, who, 
if thou diest, cannot long survive." And, throw- 



STOBY OF AN ANCIENT MABTYBBOM, 9 

ing himself at his daughter's feet, he kissed her 
hands, and drenched them with his tears. 

" What shall happen when I come before the 
tribunal depends on the will of God ; for know, 
we stand not in our own strength, but only by 
the power of God.'' It was thus tenderly and 
yet resolutely that she met the bewailings and 
beseechings of her father. 

At last the day of formal trial came, and 
she stood before the procurator. There stood 
again her aged father, if he might, in the last 
moment, dissolve by tears and pleadings the 
firmness of her faith. 

Said the procurator to Perpetua : " Have pity 
on thy father's gray hairs ; have pity on thy 
helpless child. Offer sacrifice for the welfare of 
the emperor." 

Answered Perpetua, " That I cannot do." 

" Art thou a Christian ? " judicially asked the 
procurator. 

" Yes, I am a Christian," was the unwavering 
answer of the young and tried — yet, to the last, 
faithful — soul. 

"Then," says Perpetua, " the procurator de- 
livered judgment, condemning us to be exposed 
to the wild beasts. And with hearts full of joy, 
we returned to our dungeon." 

Singing, she entered the arena, and was gored 



10 HELPS UPWARD. 

by the wild cattle ; and when that did not finish 
her, the sword-stroke of the gladiator gave her 
pure, strong spirit liberty at last. 

It is good for us to look, now and then, upon 
such pictures of that heroic time. 

For one thing, it ought to shame us. How 
constantly we are saying to ourselves, " In my 
circumstances it is so difficult to be and to live as 
a Christian ought "! And we make all manner 
of excuses to ourselves, and lay a ponderous 
blame on circumstances, and try to make our- 
selves think that we, at least, whom such iron 
and hostile circumstances surround, may be ex- 
cused from brave confession, and high and 
strenuous endeavor. But our circumstances, 
how hard soever they may be, are cushions of 
pleasantness compared with those that closed 
about such a fair, tender, shrinking woman as 
was Perpetua. Surely, if she could be so true 
and strong in her circumstances, we ought to be 
in ours. How Perpetua, in her beautiful and 
sweet resisting, ought to shame our kid-glove and 
slippered, and, too often, whining, Christianity ! 

Another thing that a vision of such strenuous 
ancient sainthood will reveal to us is our re- 
source, — our resource for our time and trial, as 
much as hers for hers. " And with hearts full 
of joy we returned to our dungeon.'^ The joy of 



STOBT OF AN ANCIENT MABTTBDOM. 11 

the good was the reason and the resource of Per- 
petua's strength. And we may have her joy, and 
so her strength, in her way, — in the only way 
for all times and for all trials ; namely, the way 
of supreme devotion to our Lord Christ. 

What joy, and so what strength ; what mastery 
of circumstances, what inner wealth, outshining 
all the gauds and glories of the world, will not 
come to us from a genuinely supreme devotion 
to Jesus Christ ! 

Here is another snatch of vision of that an- 
cient suffering, yet triumphing, sainthood. It is 
an epitaph in the Catacombs. I do not know 
anything in literature so exquisite. Robert 
Browning tells it with a poet's sight and sym- 
pathy. 

" I was born sickly, poor, and mean, 
A slave ; no misery could screen 
The holders of the pearl of price 
From Caesar's envy ; therefore twice 
I fought with beasts, and three times saw 
My children suffer by his law ; 
At last my own release was earned ; 
I was some time in being burned. 
But at the close a hand came through 
The fire above my head, and drew 
My soul to Christ, whom now I see. 
Sergius, a brother, writes for me 
This testimony on the wall ; 
For me, I have forgot it all." 




n. 

ADVANCEMENT IN RELIGION. 

.ONCBRNING advancement in re- 
ligion, I have learned three lessons 
from the story of the Magi seeking 
the infant Christ. 

First, God is true to his own 
word. His word is something you can rest on, 
as men may stand on granite. 

It is in one of what are called the minor 
prophets, that the prediction of the birth of 
Christ is to be found. The prophetic word was 
uttered seven hundred years before the birth 
took place. God did not forget that word. 
Christ was born in Bethlehem. More than that 
— the mightiest earthly power was laid under 
tribute, that this word might be kept to the last 
letter. Mary the virgin was at Nazareth, a vil- 
lage of Galilee ; but she was brought to Bethle- 
hem in Judaea, and there the Lord was born. 
And how ? Caesar Augustus was a link in the 

chain of that fulfilment. He issued a decree 

12 



ADVANCEMENT IN RELIGION. 13 

of universal taxing. The decree compelled the 
visit of Mary thither. Even Augustus, on the 
world's topmost throne, must lend his aid, 
though all unwittingly, to the accurate keeping 
of the divine promise. God's word is a sure 
word. 

Now it is right to reason from a certainty of 
the divine word here, to the certainty of it in 
other places. When God says that "unto the 
upright there ariseth light in the darkness " ; 
when we are told that " he that is willing to do 
his will, shall know of the doctrine " ; we may 
be certain that behind such utterances as well, 
there is the unchangeable veracity of God. If 
we but yield our hearts and lives to such divine 
direction, we must get on into the shining. He 
who so carefully kept that word concerning the 
birth of Jesus, will keep also his other words. 

This is the second lesson: Advancement in 
religion is not altogether dependent upon exter- 
nal advantages. We would say that the likeliest 
man in all Judaea to find the Lord would be 
Herod, the king. He need take no long journey 
as the Magi must. He was in Jerusalem, and 
Bethlehem was but six miles distant. Before 
him were the Scriptures, pointing, through all 
their prophecy, to this great advent. Besides, 
he could consult learned doctors of the law, who 



14 HELPS VPWABB. 

knew concerning what they spake. Herod held 
all possible advantages in his grasp, and yet 
Herod did not find Jesus. The Magi found 
him. External advantages are not needful to 
advancement in religion. People often think 
they are. How many times they say, "If I 
were but a person of more leisure; if only 
I were not driven quite so much by work ; if I 
were not tangled in such perplexities, or bur- 
dened with such duties; if I were a minister; 
if I had an hour now and then for retirement 
and meditation; then I might get on into the 
shining. But it is impossible to expect one like 
me to do it. From Monday morning to Satur- 
day night I am driven as balls are from a 
cannon. I have hardly time to pray — scarcely 
time to think. Everything is against me. Other 
men can be religious, I cannot." But Herod held 
affluent advantage in his hand, and did not find 
the Lord. The Magi found him. It is not on 
what we call external advantage that advance- 
ment in religion hangs. 

This is the third lesson : On what then does 
progress into the shining depend ? Here is the 
answer, "Unto the upright there ariseth light 
in the darkness." This uprightness involves 
resolute setting of one's soul toward the light 
vouchsafed ; that is to say, we need absolute and 



ADVANCEMENT IN BELIGION. 15 

utter self-surrender to the light we have. See 
these Magi. They came from the East, five 
months' journey from Jerusalem, following the 
shining in the sky, hoping it to be the augury of 
the Messiah. They saw that light and yielded 
themselves to it. And though the radiance 
passed out of the heavens for a time, still they 
surrendered themselves to its memory, and went 
on whither it had seemed to point. Through 
all that five months' journey, over desert places 
and along rough and rocky ways, they followed 
the gleaming, surrendering to it, and using the 
light they had. From Jerusalem they went 
forth to Bethlehem, and then again the light 
shone out ; and this added light they used, utterly 
determined and utterly sincere, with faces set 
toward the finding of the promised Christ. 
" Unto the upright there ariseth light in the 
darkness." To those who, following the light 
they have, thus go on in using it, the dimmer 
light shall pass into a brighter, and that into 
a light more radiant still, until, at last, they, 
with the Magi, fall before the very presence of 
the Lord. 



ni. 



THE SIGHT WHICH SATISFIES, 




HERE is an eagle yonder, holding 
himself on pinions almost motion- 
less a mile or more above the sur- 
face of the earth. But his prey is 
on the earth and not in the air, and 
from that distance he must be able to see his 
prey distinctly — squirrel, rabbit, chicken, fish. 
But as he swoops down to seize his prey it is 
needful that he be able to see it with similar 
distinctness at close range, or, coming into near- 
ness with it, he will miss it. Having such 
a power of flight, the eagle's need is at once 
a telescopic and a microscopic vision. Well, 
the eagle's need is perfectly supplied. What 
is not true of your eye or mine is true of the 
eye of the eagle. The ball of his eye is sur- 
rounded by fifteen little plates — sclerotic bones. 
They form a kind of ring around the eye, and 
their edges slightly overlap. When the eagle 
looks at a distant object, this little circle of 

16 



THE SIGHT WHICH SATISFIES. 17 

bones expands, and the ball of the eye, relieved 
from pressure, becomes flatter ; when he looks 
at a near object the little bones press together 
and the ball of the eye is squeezed into a more 
convex shape. Who is the near-sighted person ? 
The one with round eyeballs. Who is the far- 
sighted person ? The one with flatter eyeballs. 
But the eagle, by these sclerotic bones, can 
make his eye round to see near to, or flat to 
see far off, at will. Thus the need of varying 
vision, springing out of his ability of vast and 
varying flight, is met. There is adjustment 
and adaptation between need and supply. 

And this instance is but a specimen ; this 
great law of supply over against need strikes 
through all realms. And it rules in the topmost 
realm of man's spiritual nature also. You will 
remember how at the last passover our Lord 
celebrated, certain Greeks came saying, " We 
would see Jesus." Whether they knew it or 
not, they really were but prophecies and illustra- 
tions of multitudes turning with spiritual need 
toward the supply for it. Think a little of this 
fact of supply in Jesus for need, vast and hungry, 
in man's spiritual nature. Mating himself with 
this great fact and law of need and supply for 
need striking through all realms, Jesus stands, for 
man's spiritual nature, the sight which satisfies. 



18 HELPS UP W ABB. 

Well, man is craving for certainty of the 
divine sympathy; not always, perhaps, when, 
as he does now and then, he feels sufficient for 
himself under blue skies and with smooth ways 
beneath his feet; but always, however, in the 
greater crises of his life. And it is singular how 
little of this certainty of a divine sympathy he 
can wrest from nature. I went once to see one 
who was in trouble long and sore. It was in the 
beautiful spring weather, and there was a tender 
gleam on everything. But the very beauty and 
brightness all around seemed to be a kind of 
affront to this poor heart. Nature was in an- 
other, and, as it seemed to her, unfeeling mood. 
" I do not see how the sun can shine on so," she 
said, " when I am in such misery." I think we 
have all seen seasons which can furnish inter- 
pretation to such moods. The brightness of 
nature wore the look of a hard carelessness 
of our sadness. I read once of a poor fellow 
wounded in one of the battles of the war, lying 
on the battle-field in his own pain and amid 
all the death and horror about him, looking up 
toward the moon and the brighter stars the 
moonbeams did not put out, and wondering why 
both moon and stars did not shed sorrowing rays 
as they looked down on such a spectacle. I think 
the loneliest sight I have ever seen is that of the 



THE SIGHT WHICH SATISFIES, 19 

fishermen's little boats amid the great wide sea 
as the ocean steamer has ploughed her way 
across the banks of Newfoundland. The boats 
so small, the sea so great ! And when the fogs 
drop, as they often do, and the waves dash, and 
the fishermen get lost upon the awful sea, there 
is no expression of care or sympathy for them in 
the blinding fog and in the driving sea. I think 
every now and then a man seems to himseK to 
be in such a case. And he can find no sym- 
pathy in nature. And, just as truly, there is for 
him a failing and not-far-enough-reaching sym- 
pathy in friends. Have you never gone in some 
deep trouble of catastrophe or momentous deci- 
sion to some friend, and come away with the 
consciousness that, after all, you had got to 
bear your own burden, make your own decision, 
stand your own pain ? You wanted something 
from your friend you did not get, and could not. 
But how full of an interpreting and trouble- 
reaching sympathy is Jesus Christ ! He touched 
whom no one else would touch — the leper. 
He noticed at once the finger of faith upon the 
far fringes of his mantle amid the thronging of 
the crowd. He wept at the grave of Lazarus, 
though one would think his provision of the 
mighty miracle he was just about to work 
would have dried tears as the sun dries the 



20 HELPS UP W ABB. 

early summer dew. In certain moods there is 
nothing so precious to me as the study of the 
exquisite and tender disclosures of sympathy in 
Jesus. And Jesus Christ is the disclosure of 
the heart of God. No man hath seen God at 
any time ; the only begotten Son which is in the 
bosom of the Father, he hath declared him, that 
is, disclosed him. 

Do you remember that pathetic scene in the 
upper room at Jerusalem ? The disciples knew 
they were confronting a great trouble, and as 
they entered it they wanted to know about God 
and have the consciousness of his sympathy 
with them in it. " Show us the Father ; that 
sufficeth us,'' was their cry. And Jesus pointed 
them to neither sun nor stars nor flowers, not 
toward nature, but toward himself, and said: 
" He that hath seen me hath seen the Father." 
So, if you would know God, you must look to 
Jesus, and sight of him is sight of the divine 
sympathy. Gazing at him, you cannot but be 
sure God cares. Make him your confessional, 
till in his heart all your troubles rest. Well, 
when sometimes I have done it there has come a 
peace and rest so unique and heart-filling I was 
more sure than I was of anything that God did 
hear and care. 

Another crying craving in man's heart is for 



THE SIGHT WHICH SATISFIES. 21 

knowledge of future destiny. What an atrocious 
article that was by Colonel IngersoU on suicide ! 
Ah, me, what cold comfort there is, at best, in 
infidelity! I have been thinking a good deal 
about it lately in contrast with the comfort 
which Christ gives. I have been waiting, every 
day or so, beside the bed of an aged saint. Her 
life is pretty much behind her — its toils, cares, 
heroisms. It cannot be long before the final 
summons shall reach her. What could infidelity 
say to her? Really nothing more than this: 
" Well, your life is finished ; as to any other 
and better life we can know nothing ; it is all a 
guess at best. If, in your age and feebleness, 
you should want to end things — well, we would 
not dissuade you from the step ; suppose you try 
it; we can promise you nothing more or other 
than the possibility of doing that." 0, the 
hard, cold heartlessness of infidelity! I have 
been flooded with a whelming thankfulness as I 
have thought of what Jesus has given me to-day. 
I have bidden the aged saint fix the eye of her 
faith on him. I have said over to her the words 
of Jesus : " Let not your heart be troubled ; in 
my Father's house are many mansions; I wiU 
come and receive you to myself." And, as I 
have marked the satisfaction which Jesus gives 
in such an hour, I have said over and over again 



22 HELPS UP W ABB. 

to myself 5 " It is the sight of Jesus which meets 
and fills the sorest need; thank God for the 
good news of heaven and eternal health and 
undimmed triumph which Jesus brings." Yes, 
the sight of Jesus is the sight which satisfies. 
In him there is fulness of supply over against 
our most crying needs. 

" We would see Jesus — this is all we're needing, 

Strength, joy, and willingness come with the sight ; 
We would see Jesus, dying, risen, pleading. 

Then welcome day, and farewell mortal night ! " 



IV. 

THE DIVINE THOUGHT OF US. 




;NGrS the Psalmist in the one hundred 
and thirty-ninth Psalm : " How pre- 
cious are thy thoughts unto me, 
God ! " That is, toward me, the 
Psalmist's meaning being that lov- 
ing thoughts from God are running out contin- 
ually and specifically toward himself. It is a 
difficult faith for us sometimes, I grant, that 
God has precious thoughts toward us ; that God 
personally thinks of each personal one of us. 

The mass and massiveness of the universe 
sometimes makes the faith difficult. Among 
the million worlds above you, you can find no 
star upon which your thought alighting can 
fold her wing and say, This is the limit of 
creation ; beyond, is emptiness. And all below 
you, on leaves, in dew-drops, within the least 
boundaries you can get conception of, you dis- 
cover the same wealth of creative skill. And 
when one sends his thought down the long line 

23 



24 HELPS UP W ABB. 

of life beneath him, and then bids it climb the 
interminable ascent of life above him, beyond 
worlds, through cherubim, seraphim, principali- 
ties, powers, till the poor thought reels and sinks 
— how easy and despairing the confession, 0, 
in the mind of Him upon whose arm all these 
are hanging, there can be no room for any special 
thought of me ! 

The inexorability of law, also, sometimes 
makes it difficult for us to be steadfast in the 
faith that God personally thinks of every one of 
us. Law is very real and stern, and even crush- 
ing. If law rule so resolutely, where can there 
be any room or use for special divine thought of 
me ? We sometimes ask despairingly. Is not 
the world, after all, but a vast machine given 
over into the grip of law, till the machine run 
down and wear out ? 

The consciousness in sin, also, makes difficult 
the faith in God's special thought of each of us. 
Sin is separation. Impurity cannot dwell with 
purity. We are sure of that — and we are im- 
pure. And so there comes often into our sinful 
hearts a feeling of orphanage ; and we wonder 
whether, because of sin, God has not ceased 
thought of us. 

So sometimes, amid a great and torturing 
trouble, we lose faith in the special thought of 



THE BIVINE THOUGHT OF US, 25 

God about us. We say, — often, in sore trouble, 
we cannot help saying it, — If God really and 
particularly think of me, how can such buffeting 
trouble come to me ? 

But still it is fact, God does think of us. 
Still it is the most right thing and reasonable 
for us to say with the Psalmist : " How precious 
are thy thoughts unto me, God ! How great 
is the sum of them ! " 

Because of the particularity of the divine 
knowledge, we have right to faith in God's spe- 
cial thought of each of us. It is the infirmity of 
a human and finite knowledge that it must 
always be, to a greater or less extent, a knowl- 
edge merely general and at the surface ; it must 
content itself largely with the mere appearances 
of things. Here is a solid cube. I may learn 
about it — its hardness, its density, its shape, its 
thickness, its weight. But after I have learned 
all this, I must be still ignorant of the constitu- 
ent elements of that cube. I cannot go down 
into the heart of it, and tell what are its ultimate 
atoms. 

And so the organization of our knowledge, the 
classifying it into genera and species, proceeds 
rather upon our ignorance than upon what we 
really know. The word " tree " stands in our 
minds to represent the great class of trees. But 



26 HELPS UP W ABB. 

we throw all trees into this great class, not 
because we intimately know each tree, not be- 
cause we have ever seen or can ever see a 
millionth part of all the trees that are, but 
simply because we suppose all trees to bear some 
general resemblance to each other; and so, 
when we think of the class tree, we think, in 
a very vague and general way, not of specific 
trees, but of vast numbers of them thrown 
into the great tree-class. But such knowledge 
is not accurate or specific ; it deals more with 
classes than with individuals; with generals 
than with particulars. 

But with God the case is very different. He 
creates all things ; therefore he must know all 
things utterly. There must be, in the divine 
mind, a separate thought of each separate thing, 
since he creates each separate thing. So the 
divine knowledge cannot be bounded by the mere 
appearance, by the outside ; it must pierce to the 
hidden essence. Since God created me, he must 
utterly, thoroughly, separately, distinctly know 
me. He must have thought of me. Creation 
compels personal and distinct thought about the 
thing or being created. This sort of specific 
knowledge comes out wonderfully in this Psalm : 

" I will praise thee, for I am fearfully and wonder- 
fully made ; marvellous are thy works ; and that my 



THE DIVINE THOUGHT OF US. 27 

soul knoweth right well. My substance was not hid 
from thee when I was made in secret, and curiously 
wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Thine eyes 
did see my substance, yet being unperf ect ; and in thy 
book all my members were written, which in continu- 
ance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of 
them." 

But besides, we have right to faith in the 
specializing divine thought of us, because such 
personal thought of separate persons is so con- 
tinually illustrated in the life of our Lord Jesus. 
Christ is the grandest and surest reason for 
faith. I may surmise the day is dawning when 
I see the glimmer of the morning twilight. I 
am sure the day has come when the sun bursts 
through the radiant gates. So I may gain reason 
for my faith from various sources, and, therefore 
quite confidently hope some blissful truth is real. 
But tremor is changed to tremorlessness when 
the truth shines from the face of the Lord Jesus. 

The Being who walked that sorrowful path 
through Galilee and Samaria and Judaea was 
distinguished by no more noticeable peculiarity 
than this: a minutely personal thought about 
the men and women around him, whether they 
were Pharisee or Sadducee, Hebrew or Samar- 
itan, bond or free, centurion or servant. Our 
Lord Jesus was no respecter of persons in his 



28 HELPS UPWARD, 

thoughtful sympathy. Take but a single case of 
multitudes. Blindness had shrouded one from 
babyhood. Through the power of Jesus the 
waters of Siloam had washed away his lifetime 
darkness. " Who opened thine eyes ? " asked 
the Pharisees. With the new light filling his 
eyeballs the man told of Him who was called 
Jesus. Then Pharisaic bigotry sought to dim 
the glory of the sight-giver. Then the brave, 
joyful heart of the man protested in sure testi- 
mony, and would not have it so. Then they cast 
him out of the synagogue. And so he wandered 
forth, with the blight of excommunication on 
him, disowned of parents, avoided by his friends. 
But he could not wander away from the thought 
of Jesus. Though the world turned against him, 
Jesus would turn toward him. Jesus sought 
him, Jesus found him — the poor, exiled, friend- 
less man, to warm him with his sympathy, to 
embrace him with his love, to bless him with his 
forgiveness. 

I am sure the argument is legitimate. 
Christ, thou art the express image of the God- 
head bodily ! Christ, thou art always the 
same Christ. Christ, as thou didst think 
about and seek for the man born blind, so in 
all trial and loneliness, thou wilt think of me. 
Yea, verily, since Christ has come and lived 



THE DIVINE THOUGHT OF US. 29 

before me I may be sure that God does think 
of me. I have right to rejoice in the sweet 
music of this psalm. Listen how it sings to us 
of God's particularizing thought of us : — 

"O Lord, thou hast searched me and known me. 
Thou knowest my downsitting and my uprising ; thou 
understandest my thought afar off. Thou compassest 
my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with 
all my ways. Thou hast beset me behind and before, 
and laid thine hand upon me." 

So I gladly make answer and say. As thy 
thoughts toward me are precious, my God, so 
is my thought of thy thought, precious. 

It is precious for work. Work is difficult, 
sometimes tasking, straining. Often, too, work 
seems barren of result, as though one into desert 
sands were casting seeds. Frequently, as well, 
the work set against our hands seems service 
small, inconspicuous, almost worthless. But if 
God think of me ; if he knows my place of work 
and sort of work, and my frequent weariness 
amidst it ; if he knows I try to serve him and to 
please .him ; if he regards my motive, though 
to my eye such slight result appears — why, then 
the lowliest and the hardest toil is a pleasure 
and delight. And God does know, does take 
account of motive. One tells how he saw " in 



30 HELP 8 UP W ABB. 

the private treasury of Windsor Castle, a great 
gold peacock sparkling with rubies, emeralds, 
and diamonds, which had been brought away 
from some rajah's palace ; and close by it a 
common quill pen, and a bit of serge discolored. 
The pen had signed some important treaty ; the 
bit of serge was the fragment of a flag that had 
waved over some hard-fought field. The two 
together were worth a halfpenny, but they held 
their ground beside the jewels ; for they meant 
successful effort and heroic devotion for the 
interests of the kingdom, and therefore were 
laid up in the treasure-house of the king." " So 
is it," this narrator goes on to say, " with our 
poor work. Its worth depends on motive." 
Yes, working out of the motive of pleasing God, 
of doing his will, I may be sure God thinks upon 
my work, somehow uses it, deeply treasures it, 
builds it into the purposes of his great grace. 

Also, my thought of God's thought of me is 
precious for trial. Beneficent are the trials of 
God's thoughtful sending. They are not puni- 
tive; they are educative. And he knows just 
what trial and how much I need. 

Also, my thought of God's thought of me is 
precious for guard. If I were but the sport of 
law, if I were only the issue of a dead and heart- 
less mechanism, then I might, with reason, say 



THE DIVINE THOUGHT OF US. 31 

to myself, " There is no such thing as difference 
between right and wrong ; moral discriminations 
are but myths ; I will live lawlessly, and charge 
the blame of it, if there can be blame, to 
heredity and environment." But God thinks 
upon me. Then all ground is holy. Let me 
then, wherever I may be, refuse sin, enduring 
as seeing Him who is invisible. 

" Dear Lord, my heart shall no more doubt 
That thou dost compass me about 

With sympathy divine. 
The Love for me once crucified 
Is not the love to leave my side, 
But waiteth ever to divide 

Each smallest care of mine." 



J 



TRUTH TO ONE'S SELF. 




|HEN David went out to fight Goliath, 
he would not go as a mailed warrior. 
He would not pretend to be what he 
was not. He was shepherd — noth- 
ing more. Thus his weapons were 
not Saul's sword and shield. They were the 
sling and stone. He would go forth as shepherd 
with his sling and stone. He would not go 
otherwise. He would be true to himself. 

It is not always so with men. It is always 
so in nature. Things are true to themselves. 
Seeds will never cheat you — though seed- 
merchants sometimes will. Wheat is always 
wheat. When you sow wheat, you will reap 
wheat harvests. I have ridden out over the 
prairies of the Northwest; wild oats produce 
wild oats alone. A rose bears roses. A tulip- 
bulb will not build a pyramid of hyacinths. 
An oak never forgets itself and changes into 
a maple or a thistle. The wonder of my boy- 

32 



TRUTH TO ONE'S SELF. 33 

hood was an old pear-tree in the back yard 
that used to bear each season seven different 
kinds of pears. It was a common pear-tree, 
hanging out in its natural condition a very 
common and worthless sort of fruit. But 
there had been grafted into the various 
branches of it other and more valuable vari- 
eties. The trunk was just the same; the 
roots were just the same; and the roots went 
down, reaching amid the soil for the usual 
nourishment, out of which the tree was to 
manufacture its comparatively poor fruitage. 
But when, in the springtime, the sap began to 
climb the trunk, and flow out along the 
branches, and touch these slips which had 
been inserted in them, then these ingrafted 
slips could not become unmindful of their 
higher destiny. Out of that same sap they 
must elaborate pears of exactly the same 
variety to which they themselves belonged. 
And so, because each ingrafted slip could not 
be other than true to itself, the autumn crown 
of the old tree was manifold. 

This is a deep principle for life — truth to 
one's self. He is not the best man who imitates 
most exactly. He is the best man who is most 
thoroughly himself. Only let him be sure that 
he is in righteousness and purity. Well-being 



34 HELPS UPWARD. 

is the root of well-doing. Then, having received 
the new birth and the righteousness which 
Christ gives, let the man, in truth to himself, 
work out his own nature and capacity. So 
shall he illustrate God's meaning in his life. 
So shall he dwell in the sunshine of sincerity. 



VL 



A GOOD MEDICINE. 




MERRY heart is a good medicine 
— as the Revised Version translates 
the proverb. Yes, a merry — that 
is, a shining, cheerful, thankful — 
heart is a good medicine. 
It is the within which makes mainly the 
without. Special observations to determine the 
duration of sunshine in Europe have been 
taken. It was found that while Spain has 
the most sunshine, Scotland has the least. 
But what of the inner sunshine of head and 
heart which is the real source of the national 
life? Spain, with its bigotries, priestcraft, 
cruelties, illiteracies, feeblenesses, has the 
least of this; Scotland, with all its mists, 
clouds, rains, has of the shining of this " sun 
behind the sun" the most. You remember 
the true melodious lines of Coleridge, — 

« Ah, from the soul itself must issue forth 
A light, a glory, a fair, luminous cloud 
Enveloping the earth — 
35 



36 HELPS UP W ABB. 

And from the soul itself must there be sent 
A sweet and potent voice, of its own birth, 
Of all sweet sounds the life and element ! 

We in ourselves rejoice ! 
And thence flows all that charms or ear or sight, 
All melodies the echoes of that voice, 
All colors a suffusion of that light." 

Well, a merry heart will cure the ill of look- 
ing at the darker side of things. There in 
England, where the land ends, and the foot 
of the island pushes itself far out into the 
sea, you come upon a house. Approaching 
the house from one side, you read, written on 
its walls, the legend, " This is the last house 
in England " — and that is melancholy enough. 
But, passing around the house, and approaching 
it from its other side, you read this legend, 
written on its other wall, " This is the first 
house in England" — and the whole prospect 
brightens. It is the merry heart which has 
steady eyes for the brighter side. 

Also, a merry heart will cure laggard work. 
" Father, what is an optimist ? " the boy asked. 
The father thought a little, and then said, 
"Now, sonny, you know I can't give ye the 
dictionary meanin' of that word, no more'n I 
can of a great many others. But I've got a 
kind of an idee what it means. Probably you 



A GOOD MEDICINE, 37 

don't remember your Uncle Henry, but I guess 
if there ever was an optimist he was one. 
Things was always comin' out right with 
Henry, and especially anything hard that he 
had to do ; it wa' n't a-goin' to be hard — 'twas 
jist kind of solid pleasant. Take hoein' corn, 
now. If anything kind of took the tucker out 
of me, 't was hoein' corn in the hot sun. But 
in the field, long about the time I begun to lag 
back a little, he 'd look up an' say, ' Good, Jim ! 
When we get these two rows hoed, an' eighteen 
more, the piece '11 be half done ! ' An' he 'd say 
it in such a kind of a cheerful way that I 
couldn't 'a' ben any more tickled if the piece 
had been all done — an' the rest would go light 
enough." Anybody can see, if a man goes at 
his work with a heart like that, whether his 
work be hoeing corn, or merchandising, or 
school teaching, or clerking, or carpentering, 
or preaching, his work will be swiftly and well 
done. 

Also, a sunny heart will cure the ill of useless 
discipline. This is a probationary world. This 
is a world in which we are getting ready for 
another, infinitely larger, infinitely nobler. And 
discipline must be a necessarily constituent ele- 
ment in the process of getting ready for that 
better world. And it makes all the difference 



38 HELPS UPWARD. 

in the world how you take the discipline, 
whether it be blight or blessing to you ; whether 
it be VL^Q-ful or vl^q-Uss, But a merry heart — 
that is, a strong, brave, thoughtful, shining 
heart — is a sort of medicine which will 
prevent discipline from becoming useless, 
hardening. 

There are some medicines which, if you may 
trust the advertisements of them, are even uni- 
versal medicines. Meet every ill — neuralgia, 
stomach-ache, rheumatism, heart-disease, con- 
sumption, worms, whooping - cough, measles, 
mumps — with this medicine, and, according to 
the advertisement, you vanquish it. But, after 
all, when you come to think of it, is not this 
good medicine of a sunny heart a really quite 
universal remedy? 

But where and how can you get this medi- 
cine of a sunny heart? Well, you may get 
and take this good medicine of a sunny heart 
by taking short views. Mr. T. W. Higginson 
tells of a little boy who one night roused his 
mother by a violent fit of weeping. When she 
went to his bed to find the cause of a grief so 
deep and strong, the little fellow sobbed out, 
" I'm afraid — when I grow up — that I sha' n't 
have money enough — to pay my taxes." 

But there are older people quite as unwise 



A GOOD MEDICINE. 39 

as the little boy. They forebode ; they con- 
jure up all sorts of shapes of ills in the 
far future. They borrow trouble. They load 
themselves down needlessly in preparation for 
that altogether imagined and conjured up con- 
tingency. I have read of a certain high 
Chinese official, despatched on a special errand, 
who gave orders that a hundred and fifty 
pounds of salt should be placed in his lug- 
gage, lest he should find no salt in the Euro- 
pean country whither he was going. There 
are multitudes of foreboding people who 
weight themselves just as unwisely. It is 
impossible that they have a merry heart. 
They are strained, anxious, burdened. Such 
can get this good medicine of a merry heart 
by taking short views. 

Also, we may get and take this good medi- 
cine of a merry heart by counting mercies. " It 
ain't so hard to be contented with the things 
we have,'' said the old woman dolefully; "it's 
being contented with the things we haven't 
that 's so tryin'." " I don't know about that," 
said Uncle Silas; "when we begin to look at 
the things our neighbors have and we have n't, 
we always pick out just the things we want. 
They live in a nice house, we say, and we 
have only a little one. They have money. 



40 HELPS UPWARD, 

and we need to count every penny. They 
have an easy time, and we have to work. We 
never say : ' They had the typhoid fever, but 
it did not come near us. They have a son in 
the insane asylum, but our brains are sound. 
Staggering feet go into their grand door, but 
nothing worse than tired ones come home to 
ours at night.' You see when we begin to call 
Providence to account for the things that don't 
come to us, it's only fair to take in all kinds 
of things." 

Count your individual mercies. There was a 
dear, serene old lady. Somehow a sweet and 
beautiful light kept falling on her face. The 
lines of care and irritation could not be found 
in it. A woman given to fretfulness and almost 
annoyed at such steady placidity, asked her 
the secret of her content. "My dear, I keep 
a pleasure book," she said. Speech went on 
about it, and at last the pleasure book was 
shown. It was filled with items like these: 
" Saw a beautiful lily in a window." " Talked 
to a bright, happy girl." "Received a kind 
letter from a dear friend." " Enjoyed a beauti- 
ful sunset." " Husband brought some roses 
home to me." " My boy out to-day for the 
first time after the croup." " Have you found 
pleasure for every day ? " wistfully asked the 



A GOOD MEDICINE. 41 

fretful woman. " Yes, for every day, even 
the sad ones," was the low-toned answer. Ah, 
yes, keep you a pleasure book ; count you your 
mercies; so you can get and take this good 
medicine of a merry heart. 

But after all, the best way to get and take 
this good medicine of a merry heart is by the 
cherishing of a steady faith in God. I have 
read how Pastor Heme carved over the lintel of 
his house the motto, " God is overhead. All 's 
well." 



THE END. 



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